Florence Gould, a patron of the arts, died in her villa on the Mediterranean in 1983. She was 87 years old.

Mrs. Gould had moved to the villa after the death of her husband, Frank Jay Gould, in 1956. She was born in San Francisco, the daughter of Maximilien Lacaze, a French publisher who made his fortune in the United States. She interrupted her career as an opera singer in 1923 when she married Mr. Gould, who was the son of Jay Gould, the American railroad magnate.

When Florence J. Gould, a patron of the arts and daughter-in-law of the railroad magnate Jay Gould, was 80 years old, she packed most of her jewelry and went to Japan and Southeast Asia.

The necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings, brooches and clips she took with her on that 1976 trip, jewelry now valued at about $8 million, will be auctioned next Wednesday at Christie’s.

“She let all the women in a geisha house try on her jewels,“ Daniel Wildenstein, the art dealer, recalled of an incident he witnessed as her companion on that journey. He was wary, he said, but Mrs. Gould was not, and “she was proven right – all the jewels came back.“

In Cambodia, Mrs. Gould, generously decked out in gems, traveled by elephant to see the temples of Angkor. On another occasion, Mrs. Gould, wearing rings on her fingers and jewels at her throat, rode off into the Cambodian jungle in a pedicab with only a guide.

“She was full of diamonds,“ Mr. Wildenstein recalled, adding that he feared for the safety of his friend and client.

“I was certain she’d never arrive alive. She wasn’t the least bit afraid. Of course, all was well.“ Mrs. Gould’s jewelry remained intact on that trip, and she wore most of it frequently at El Patio, her villa at Cannes, until her death at 87, a year ago. The bulk of the extraordinary jewelry holdings of the widow of Frank Jay Gould – he was Jay Gould’s youngest child and a real-estate tycoon who developed Juan-les- Pins on the Riviera – will be on view all this weekend and through next Tuesday at Christie’s, Park Avenue at 59th Street.

Not all of Mrs. Gould’s jewelry is in this sale – some pieces were sold earlier, and others were stolen. Following a 1978 theft at her estate, involving $1.4 million worth of jewels, Mrs. Gould spoke lightly of the loss. “She used to say, ‚Thank heaven, they only got my everyday jewelry,‘ “

John Young, a director of the Florence J. Gould Foundation, said, adding that the most valuable pieces stolen were a three-strand necklace of 97 pearls, worth almost $700,000, and an 85-pearl chain.

The purpose of the foundation, which benefits from most of Mrs. Gould’s $100 million estate, is to foster French-American amity. Mrs. Gould, who was born in San Francisco and studied opera before she became Mr. Gould’s third wife in 1923, died without heirs.

The star among the 87 offerings in the sale is a sapphire necklace valued at as much as $1.5 million. The design began as a simple necklace devised by Van Cleef & Arpels, using a spectacular 114.30-carat sapphire, “The Blue Princess,‘‚ with diamonds.
Mrs. Gould subsequently made “The Blue Princess“ the center of an assemblage of sapphires and diamonds, a necklace that she styled and Georges Bidault, a jeweler with a workshop outside Paris, fabricated.

Second only in value to the sapphire is the “Victory“ diamond, 31.35 carats, mounted as a ring, which was named for the Allied victory in World War II because the rough stone from which it was cut was discovered in Sierre Leone in 1945 at the end of the war.
The rough stone was the third- largest ever found in Africa. The ring is estimated to sell for up to $700,000.

Mrs. Gould had a passion for pearls, and more than one superb necklace remains.
A pearl and diamond fringe necklace by Alexander Reza, a Paris jeweler on the Place Vendome is estimated to sell for up to $300,000.
“If we had five of them, we could sell them all, so strong is the interest,“ Francois Curiel, Christie’s jewelry specialist, said. Mr. Reza also fashioned for Mrs. Gould an emerald-bead necklace of carved fluted stones, the size of marbles, which is estimated to bring up to $220,000.

She wore diamonds from head to toe – as Mr. Curiel discovered when he checked her closets and found a pair of diamond clips on her shoes. She wore fakes too – there are three fake diamonds, two fake sapphires and an ersatz emerald in the sale. The fakes and the fish – there are numerous fish-shape pins, crafted of sapphires and diamonds, and of ivory, diamonds and emeralds – are, according to Christie’s, attracting the most interest among lower-price offerings in the sale.

On April 12, 1984 her jewelry was sold for $8 million, the highest price then ever reached at auction for a single collection of jewelry.

Jewelry Collections Of Prominent Women

Jewelry that was owned by three other women who were prominent in their careers and as hostesses will be offered next week in three sales at Sotheby’s, York Avenue at 72d Street. Eleanor (Cissy) Medill Patterson, publisher of The Washington Herald until her death in 1948, was partial to the black-pearl necklace and earrings that will be sold next Thursday at 2 P.M.

Miss Patterson bought the string of 22 natural black pearls, separated by diamonds, with matching ear clips in 1934, when she saw them in the window at Cartier in New York.

According to an account in “Cissy,“ a biography of the publisher by Paul Healy, Cartier had just acquired the jewelry from Prince Youssoupoff, a Romanov, who told Jacques Cartier that two of the pearls had belonged to Catherine the Great.
Miss Patterson left the pearls to Evie Robert, a friend, who was a columnist, and whose daughter Alice Birney Robert Jones is the consignor. Sotheby’s expects the pearls will bring as much as $200,000.

Following the death in 1975 of Perle Mesta, the celebrated party giver who was Minister to Luxembourg under President Harry S. Truman, her jewelry was purchased by an antiques dealer, who sold it to a collector.
Now the collector, who has not been identified, is selling Mrs. Mesta’s suite of aquamarine and diamond jewelry, comprising a necklace, pendant, ear clips and brooch (up to $30,000), and an emerald and diamond brooch (up to $20,000). These will also be auctioned.

Turquoise and diamond ornament brooch| Royal Wedding gift from the Prince and Princess of Wales to Princess Mary of Teck

Turquoise and diamond ornament brooch| Royal Wedding gift from the Prince and Princess of Wales to Princess Mary of Teck.

The jewel was a wedding gift in 1893 from Queen Mary’s in-laws, the Prince and Princess of Wales, later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

The center of the ornament is a large round turquoise cabochon, surrounded from 14 diamonds.

Above on the left in the picture, Queen Mary wearing the Turquoise Diamond Cluster Brooch with a pendant, it looks like one of the „chips“, the smaller parts of the Cullinan Diamonds.

After her death, in 1953 the turquoise brooch, was inherited by her granddaughter, Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II, wore the Turquoise and Diamond Brooch three times, at least on 5th April in 2020 when she had addresses to the UK and Commonwealth in a special broadcast recorded at Windsor Castle.
More History:

Quote from Emperor Napoleon’s letters to Empress Josephine in November 1805 in Strasbourg……….

„I write to Mr. von Harville that you should leave for Baden and go from there to Stuttgart and Munich.

In Stuttgart you present the bridal present to Princess Paul.

It is enough if you put it in the basket (Corbeille de Mariage) for 20,000 francs, the rest is for the gifts you give in Munich to the daughters of the Elector of Bavaria.

Take with you what is necessary to give gifts to the ladies and officers who will serve you. Behave in a dignified manner, but be willing to accept all homages: they owe you everything.

Princess Charlotte von Sachsen-Hildburghausen, married Prince Paul von Württemberg (1785-1852) in 1805 and was then called „Princess Paul“.

Princess Paul, Princess Charlotte of Saxon-Hildburghausen (1787-1847) was a daughter of Duke Friedrich and Duchess Charlotte, niece of Queen Luise of Prussia and sister of the famous Princess Therese – later the Queen of Bavaria.

The bride of the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig, who was against the connection with Napoleon.

Thus close member of the family, her future daughter-in-law Princess Auguste Amalia Ludovika of Bavaria.

Empress Josephine’s son, Eugene Beauharnais, married in January 1806, into the Bavarian royal family. Her tactically dynastic husband Napoleon instructed her to make a special gift.

In 1818 the couple separated and Charlotte returned to Hildburghausen. Together they had five surviving children.

The eldest daughter was Princess Charlotte (1807-1873), later Grand Duchess Helene Pavlovna ⚭ 1824 Grand Duchess Michael Pavlovich (1798-1849) she was provided with jewels and jewellery by the generous bridal gifts and bridal equipment also for married brides, the Romanov family.

Her eldest son Prince Friedrich von Württemberg 1808-1870 married on November 20, 1845 his cousin Princess Katharina von Württemberg (1821-1898), a daughter of King Wilhelm I. He inherited from his mother the wedding jewellery – the Topazparure.

The only child from this marriage was Prince Wilhelm, born 1848 in Stuttgart, who became King of Württemberg in 1891 as Wilhelm II.

In 1877 Prince Wilhelm married Princess Marie zu Waldeck and Pyrmont. This marriage with a small princely house, a marriage of affection, met with little enthusiasm in Württemberg.

Also from the Teck Turquoise Parure, two of the bow brooches with turquoises and diamonds. The Turquoise Diamond Parure and die Turquoise Diamond Cluster Necklace and matching earrings with Turquoise and Diamonds

Princess Aglaë Margarete Tatiana Mary of Baden, the niece of Margrave Max of Baden married in the summer of 2019, in Amorbach, Mr Wolf of Trotha.

The bride wore a Fleur de Lys diadem and the bridal gown of her mother, the Austrian Princess Marianne von Auersperg-Breunner, from 1967, when she married Prince Ludwig of Baden, the Margrave’s brother. The 200-year-old bridal veil also comes from Auersperg-Breunner’s estate.

The diadem is a surprise from the treassures of the Baden family, because it is probably the wedding present of the Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, from 1900, when the then Princess Marie – Luise of Hanover, Prince Max of Baden (Prince Maximilian Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm of Baden * 10 July 1867 † 6 November 1929, 1918 was the last Chancellor of the German Empire and the last heir to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden), married.

From the press at that time is to be read:Gmunden Austria, July 1900. The wedding gifts, received from Princess Marie Luise, were displayed in a small salon of Cumberland Castle on long, white-covered tables for inspection.

„Emperor Franz Joseph had sent a magnificent crown of large diamonds“ …. nothing was known, about it, for a long time.

Princess Marie-Luise, although often wore two large Fleur de Lys brooches studded with large diamonds, on her dress, as can be seen above in the picture, but the matching crown, was never seen in public.

Now a descendant of her, has solved the mystery, the tiara in the form of a diamond crown of five Fleur de Lys lilies, is still in the family, and property of the house Baden and will hopefully be seen more often now as tiara.

The court jeweler of Emperor Franz Joseph was most A.E Köchert , in this time, but also court jeweler Biedermann.

The coronation was the most spectacular moment of George’s life and came at a cost of more than £240,000.

The King himself oversaw the design of his coronation robes, including the crimson velvet surcoat and a stole made from cloth of silver, gold thread and silk, embroidered with the national flowers of the United Kingdom. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s coronation portrait shows the King in his ceremonial clothing with the Imperial State Crown, traditionally remade for the coronation of each new monarch, placed on a table to his right.

The crown, see below in the picture, was set with more than 12,300 diamonds that had been hired for the occasion.

George IV: Art & Spectacle King George of Great Britain Coronation

George wanted to keep the crown after the ceremony, but Parliament refused to support the cost. The King therefore commissioned a gilt-bronze cast of the Imperial State Crown, which is on public display for the first time.

The Diamond Diadem, designed for George IV’s coronation by the jewellers Rundell Bridge & Rundell, is set with 1,333 diamonds, including a four-carat pale yellow brilliant.

Openwork silver frame lined with gold and set transparent with diamonds; narrow band edged with pearls, surmounted by four crosses-pattée, the front cross set with a pale yellow brilliant, and four sprays representing the national emblems of the United Kingdom, incorporating the national emblems of England, Scotland and Ireland,Rose – Shamrock-Thistle – Daffodil.

This feminine association belies its origin, since it was made for George IV’s use at his famously extravagant coronation in 1821. On that occasion, he wore it on top of a large velvet ‚Spanish‘ hat surmounted by ostrich feathers, with a curled wig beneath, at the ceremonies in Westminster Hall and during the walking procession to Westminster Abbey.

The order for the diadem was placed with Rundells in 1820 and work was complete by May of that year.

The design, probably by Rundells‘ chief designer Philip Liebart, reflects something of the discarded plan for George IV’s Imperial State Crown, which was drawn up by Liebart in the same period and was to have included the national emblems in place of the traditional fleurs-de-lis.

Together with a diamond-studded loop (which was broken up to help make Queen Victoria’s Garter armlet) the bill for the diadem amounted to the large sum of £8,216.

This included an £800 hire charge for the diamonds – stones were regularly hired for use at coronations up to 1837 – computed on a percentage of the value of the stones.

When the coronation had to be postponed for a year on account of Queen Caroline’s trial, a further hire charge was levied. Normally the stones would have been returned to Rundells after the coronation, but in this case there is no sign that the delicately worked diamond sprays and crosses, a masterpiece of the new transparent style of setting, have been disturbed. Equally, there is no evidence that the King purchased the stones outright, so it could be that the bill was met by a discreet barter of old stones from George IV’s extensive collection.

Today the diadem is worn by Her Majesty The Queen when travelling to and from the State Opening of Parliament.

At the coronation banquet, works were displayed from the Grand Service, an unrivalled 4,000-piece collection of dining and buffet silver-gilt that George first commissioned when Prince of Wales and is still used today at State Banquets, see below.

coronation silver tray Georg IV

A spectacular silver-gilt tray by goldsmith Paul Storr for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, weighing over 9kg and engraved with the Royal Arms and the Prince of Wales’s coronet, was put on show prominently behind the King, In the picture above.

George acquired works of art with abandon to decorate his residences, and these remain some of the greatest items in the Royal Collection.

As Prince of Wales, he lived at Carlton House on London’s Pall Mall. Within ten years of taking possession of the mansion in 1783, he had run up debts of around £400,000, furnishing the rooms with paintings, the finest French furniture and decorative arts, and creating a series of interiors that were widely regarded as among the most handsome in Europe.

One of the highlights of his Kunstkammer is the Nautilus cup and cover by Nikolaus Schmidt, which stands at more than half a metre in height. This unusually large shell is elaborately mounted with silver-gilt figures of Jupiter, Neptune, a mythical sea creature called a hippocamp and four double-tailed mermaids playing instruments. In his library at Carlton House, George read voraciously on topics ranging from geography and military history to the work of Jane Austen.

The Times wrote, ‘there never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this deceased King’, while the Duke of Wellington called him ‘the most munificent patron of the fine arts’ and ‘the most accomplished man of his age’. On the one hand, George was a recklessly profligate showman, who had little regard for the hardships suffered by the rest of the country, and on the other, he was a connoisseur with intellectual interests, whose passion for collecting left a great artistic legacy.

Through more than 300 works from the Royal Collection,
George IV: Art & Spectacle sheds new light on this monarch of extreme contrasts.

George IV: Art & Spectacle is at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, 15 November 2019 – 3 May 2020.

Son of Mian Kishan Singh Sahib, born 20 August 1904, educated at Queen Mary’s College and Aitchison College, Lahore; Indian Ambassador to Brazil 1952/56; Member of Lok Sabha 1957/62; Honorary Lt.-Col. 3rd/17th Dogra Regiment and Bengal Sappers and Miners.

Married 3rdly, 13 May 1930, Kumari Kusum Kumari [HH Rani Kusum Kumari of Mandi], born 27 August 1913, died June 1998, daughter of Kunwar Prithiraj Sinhji of Rajpipla, and had issue, two sons and two daughters. He died 16 June 1986.

The surmount set with a carved emerald flower, framed with circular-cut diamonds, supporting a plaque set with an hexagonal polished emerald and calibré-cut emeralds, supporting three emerald drops with onyx rondelle crowns and circular-cut diamond terminals, unsigned, brooch fitting detachable, one small emerald deficient.

The pendant will be offered at auction by Sotheys, Geneve November 2019. Accompanied by SSEF report no. 108686, stating that the emeralds are of Colombian origin, with a minor to a moderate amount of oil in fissures.

Cartier’s use of mughal stones in jewellery was an important aspect of their Indian style, these designs were dominant between 1913 and 1930.

Raja is a title for a monarch equivalent to king or princely ruler in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

This pendant also calls to mind the brooch worn by Marjorie Merriweather Post, captured in a painting by Giulio de Blaas in 1929.

this impressive stomacher pin was given by Napoleon I (1769-1821), Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days, to Countess Maria Walewska (1786-1817).

Napoleons Love Token!

The motif surmounting the central sapphire is a Roman Helmet, alluding to Napoleon’s wish to associate himself with the great rulers of the Roman Empire.

Other emblems, including two crossed canons, a drum and lances demonstrate further Napoleon’s desire to represent military strength.
To the right of the central sapphire is a monogram depicting a ‘WN’ entwined, alluding to the Emperor and the Countess Waleska.
It is believed that the ruby-eyed eagle, surmounting the piece represents the Imperial Eagle.
However, it is not depicted in the usual proud stance, instead it is a recumbent eagle, considered to provide a form of protection to the rest of the jewel, and therefore to the person it is given to.